EU nationals living in UK drop by 200k

But total born elsewhere up by 60,000

THE number of EU nationals living in the UK has fallen by more than 200,000 in a year to levels last seen in 2015, official figures suggest.

There were just under 3.5million people with EU nationality in Britain last year compared with 3.72million in 2019, analysts estimate.

At the same time, the number of non-EU foreign nationals in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland increased by around 60,000, from 2.51million to 2.57million.

The pandemic and Brexit are likely to have been behind decisions by EU nationals to return to their country of birth.

But there could be many more EU citizens in Britain, than the estimates by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest. Home Office figures, released this week, reveal that nearly five million have been granted the right to continue living and working here under the EU Settlement Scheme established after Brexit. The ONS said the number in the UK’s 66.28million population born abroad stood at 9.54million last year. Some three million of those have UK nationality.

India has retained the top spot as the most common nonUK country of birth, after dislodging Poland last year.

London remains the region with the highest number of overseas residents – with 37 per cent of its population born abroad. Twenty-two per cent of those living in the capital are non-British.

There are in excess of two million more EU citizens here than in 2004, when the total was under 1.1million. But in that year freedom of movement rights for EU residents were extended and the EU expanded to include ten more countries, mainly in Eastern Europe.

Numbers reached a record of 3.81million in 2017, the year after the Brexit vote.

The ONS cautioned yesterday that social distancing restrictions from March last year meant it had to conduct the sample research on which it bases its wider estimates by phone rather than face to face.

This meant it was harder to reach immigrants and foreign nationals, and anyone occupying rental accommodation.

It acknowledges its figures are different from the Home Office’s Settlement Scheme figures, but Jay Lindop, of the ONS, said it is ‘almost certainly not true’ that those five million are all currently living here. Some may have returned home. She is confident 3.5million is her organisation’s ‘best estimate’.